Occurred: 2016-01-21 20:02 Local
Reported: 2016-09-16 11:49 Pacific
Duration: ~3 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: South Jordan, UT, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object

Several large orange lights hovering over South Jordan, Utah

On the night of January 21, 2016, I was leaving my place of employment on Riverfront Parkway, South Jordan, Utah, at shortly after 8 pm. I exited out of the east side of the building and headed southward towards the parking lot.

As I cleared the building, off to the right, something in the western sky caught my eye. I looked over, and there, hovering over the farm behind my place of employment, were several orange lights. They were rather large and flat in shape, each one comprised of a single light in the middle and two beams of light extending out on either side.

The lights were hovering in a somewhat vertical formation that appeared slightly like a sideways W, and it quickly became obvious to me that they were not airplanes because they were not moving at all. It also didn’t seem like they could have been helicopters because they were making no sound whatsoever, and they were close enough that had they been helicopters I would certainly have been able to hear them.

Because the lights were holding so still it was impossible for me to tell if they were being produced by one single object with multiple lights, or if each light represented a separate object.

As I stared at the phenomenon in front of me, my first inclination was to run back into the building and tell the other employees from my company that were still inside to come out and witness it with me. But then I thought to myself that if I did that there’s a chance the objects might do something in my absence, and I would miss it. So I decided to just stand there in the parking lot and observe.

The objects continued to hover above the farm for what seemed like another couple of minutes. Then, suddenly, as if there was some coordination between them, they began to move. At this point it became obvious that I was not observing one single object, since they were clearly moving in relationship to one another. The lights at the bottom of the formation began moving upward so they were more parallel with the ones at the top.

The motion that these objects exhibited at that moment was different than I have ever seen from conventional aircraft, as some of them were actually moving diagonally. The closest thing I can describe their motion to is that of fireflies.

Then, as the objects at the bottom had reached a position where they were more parallel with those at the top, one by one they began to blink out. Since it was dark, I couldn’t tell if they just turned their lights off, or if they actually disappeared. But, bottom line, they were gone.

I stood there for a moment, baffled, wondering what it was I just witnessed. Then I got in my car and drove home.

That weekend I pondered over the event. I couldn’t think of a rational explanation for what I had seen, and I wished there had been someone else who had witnessed it with me. Then, it occurred to me that maybe there was. I recalled that my co-worker who sat next to me had left only about 30 seconds before I did. Surely, I thought, the lights were there when he had left the building.

So, the next time we worked together I decided to ask him if he had seen them too. His response was an enthusiastic yes. The reason I had not seen him out in the parking lot with me was because he had already gotten in his car and was watching the lights through his car window.

We later had a chance to discuss the event more in detail. His description of the event was very similar to mine: The lights were hovering, then, after a couple of minutes, they began to move, and then disappeared. While we were discussing our experience, the girl that sat across the aisle from us began to comment that she and some of her friends had had similar experiences, and I realized that this kind of thing is becoming far more common than it used to be.

As far as what the explanation is for what I saw, I am torn. Part of me thinks it could be evidence for extra-terrestrial life, but the more skeptical part of me thinks it could have been a clever hoax. For now, the incident remains unexplained.

Posted 2016-09-22

© 2023 National UFO Reporting Center. All rights reserved. Use or reproduction within any application without written consent is prohibited.